#uchimasu

i used to rp at deviantart ……. omg … we could’ve known each other in the hetalia fandom imagine that.

( THE LAST TIME I talked about those dang Hetalia days I got half of my dashboard to come out and say, ‘hey i was into that too.’

i love u tho

When I was in high school, I took Japanese as my 'foreign' language.

My best friend was a year ahead in Japanese(she started freshman year, I started sophomore year), so sometimes I'd bug her to help me with things. Which, of course, she did, because she's rather brilliant and amazing, and she loves me even though I'm crazy(she's even crazier sometimes, so it works). 

Anyway, so once I was preparing for a verb test, and I came across the dictionary form of a word--utsu. I had no idea what it meant.

We also had no idea how to put it into its -masu form. My suggestion was uchimasu, which we decided meant 'to love.' This, if you know anything about Japanese as a language, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's actually rather funny if you know what it really means.

When I took my test about 20 minutes later, I conjugated as well as I possibly could, and I was right. Utsu becomes uchimasu. 

However, it also means to hit.

My best friend and I thought this was absolutely hilarious. We used it all the time--we'd scream 'uchimasu' at each other, and do our little heart hands thing, and it was fantastic. 

Now, this story has a point. No matter what utsu means in reality, I always remember the bit about love. 

Uchimasu kind of translates in a weird way for me. It means, in essence, with all of my emotional baggage, to hit you with my love.

This reminds me of Sam and Freddie from iCarly so much, it's scary.

In reality, they are not a nice couple. Sam is mean, and Freddie's snarky, and Sam hits Freddie.

But just as uchimasu isn't quite just to hit, Sam and Freddie are not quite enemies. They are friends, despite the odds. 

Somehow, they aren't just the violence--they are friends, first kisses, and first real relationships. I really don't count the other ones, because none of them lasted more than an episode. Carly is the only complicated thing. She and Freddie are fairly traditional as a love story. Friends to lovers. Sweet. Silly. If Carly loved him, they'd probably be pretty cute. But she doesn't.

Sam and Freddie are not traditional. They're part of a much larger ship type--the kind that usually isn't as highly supported as Seddie is, actually. 

Just as to love is not part of the official definition for utsu, neither are Sam and Freddie a traditionally supported couple type(minus maybe Romione, but they're an exception that definitely proves the rule, and an entirely different story). Problematically, if you extend that metaphor a bit further, it also suggests that Seddie doesn't exist. But it does for them. For all of us who ship Seddie. Just as utsu will always mean to love for me and my best friend. 

Love is never really about the people who aren't involved. It's about the people who feel it, just as a ship only makes sense to its shippers.

To me the thing that is most special about Seddie is that they aren't easy. They are going to challenge each other, and drive each other crazy, and get under each other's skin. But they're also going to love each other. 

I had a conversation recently with my roommate about old couples that love each other versus not loving each other. Some of them stay together because they're married, and old, and lonely. Others because they have so many years of affection between them, it's like a new kind of love. 

I like to think that the kind of couples who still love each other, after many, many years, are the ones who never stop challenging each other, but can still relax and have fun together. The ones who aren't extensions of each other, aren't absolute opposites, but the ones who just kind of drive each other crazy in the best way. I don't mean like Chuck and Blair from Gossip Girl. No. That's not the kind of challenge I mean. I mean the kind where they bring out the best in each other. Which is where I see Sam and Freddie heading. 

Sam kind of pushes Freddie out of his shell. He retaliates sometimes--do you think he'd be the much stronger guy he is now if it weren't for her? Sure, she was a little too mean. But being around him makes Sam a little . . . better sometimes. How often does she say sorry? Not often, but she does to him.

Since Sam and Freddie are on a kid's show, I'm never going to get most of the character development I want, obviously. It could be better.

However, the essential elements remain. Sam and Freddie are like uchimasu. 

They're strange, not quite right, but I think they're absolutely wonderful.

And so ends a horribly extended metaphor that explains absolutely nothing.